Traveling Lady
by streetlights and music
Summary: He drifts from city to city, but he always ends up in Burgess in the end. (implied platonic/romantic) Jack/Jamie. [if you can hear me, part 2]


**Word Count:** 1063. (Not counting the breaks.)

**Warnings:** Character Death.

**Notes: **This is inspired by, and I highly, _highly_ recommend that you listen to this before you start reading (I'm just one short of requiring you, really), Leonard Cohen's _Winter Lady_. You can listen to the original, or you can listen to the wonderful cover by Beck. Both are good.

I was hoping this fic would break a few hearts, but I don't think this is heartbreaking enough. And that kinda breaks _my_ heart but, eh, we'll see.

* * *

**i.**

Everything is familiar and heavy with his scent, so Jack leaves.

**ii.**

He doesn't head to Burgess (not anymore) because the place draws him in like a moth to a flame, his feet gravitating to _that_ lake and _that_ house like magnets. No, Jack Frost heads to New York instead, where the people are always busy and the streets are always crowded. It's easy to get lost in the crowd, easier when only a handful of them can see you, and only when they remember to look. He is careful when he remembers; he sidesteps from the children before they can notice, and he passes through everyone else (the heavy feeling of it washes over him like a relief sometimes, as strange as that sounds).

He never stays in just one place for too long, not even in Burgess, but sometimes he'll stay long enough.

Sometimes, he'll stay longer.

**iii.**

He announces his visits with delicate frost designs on the windowsill. The windows open; he is pulled in; his staff falls gracelessly on the floor; he is smothered in a tight embrace; … he is loved. The boy – he forgets his name sometimes, forgets that he doesn't have a little sister, or that he hates cocoa, but it doesn't matter right now because the boy – holds him tightly against his chest, smiles against the frost patterns of his hoodie, breathes in his scent (minty, exhilarating), looks up at him, bright-eyed and _beaming_.

_I was waiting_, is what the boy says before he lets go. Jack smiles and ruffles his hair (brown and soft, just like–)

The boy ducks away, asks _will you be staying_, to which Jack replies, _of course I am._

As if he had even considered the alternative.

**iv.**

(This isn't him, this isn't real, but–)

The boy slides the mug towards him gently (brewed coffee; hot and bitter, steam still rising), smiling apologetically because, _you don't like coffee that much, do you?_

Jack shakes his head. _It's too bitter._

The boy laughs, and it's kind of a melodious laugh really, but Jack couldn't find it in himself to commit it to memory.

(Couldn't find it in himself to fall in love; but sometimes, he tries.)

**v.**

He bargains for time. Asks for stolen moments and borrowed nights.

Sometimes they kiss, but Jack closes his eyes too tightly each time.

**vi.**

The boy reminds him that _you don't have to stay._

Jack laughs (his laughs are often genuine, and they are sometimes hollow) because _I want to stay._

The boy rolls his eyes and goes back to his homework, but Jack hovers over him and convinces him to play video games instead. The boy never says no.

**viii.**

Jack will ask of him many things: a smile, a snowball fight, a kiss.

He doesn't ask him if he wants to fly.

**ix.**

_You don't love me_, the boy says one night, and Jack doesn't deny it.

The boy shakes his head, his smile never leaving his face.

_You're in love with someone else,_ he continues, pressing his lips together with the winter spirit's. Jack kisses back.

He doesn't tell him anything, doesn't tell him how wrong and how right he is at the same time, but the boy doesn't mind, so Jack tries not to.

**x.**

He couldn't really be any older than Jack (give or take three centuries or so). But he will always be just _the boy_ in Jack's eyes, because he's brimming with faith and hope and wonder; childlike, but not childish; and so _so_ much like someone Jack wishes he could (never) forget.

Jack never calls him by his name because he always forgets; it doesn't matter if he hammers his name down his skull and engraves it permanently like a tattoo. He _will_ forget, because the boy (is too much like _his_ spitting image: boyish charm and innocence and fun; looks at him fondly in the same way, in all the same angles; smiles a little too similarly; feels too much like a _replacement_) is different, someone else, certainly not the boy he left in Burgess.

(He didn't mean to. Hadn't _meant_ to .)

(He would protect him if he could – he had _wanted_ to, even – be he was no longer a child. And there's nothing Jack could do about that)

**xi.**

The boy's smile goes somber._ You're quiet today._

He takes Jack's hand in his, traces the veins along the back of his hand, encircles his wrist with his fingers, feels the expected coldness of it instead of the pulse that should be beating hotly against his thumb. _You're leaving soon, right?_

Jack nods, tells him that _I have to_, and the boy asks _do you want to?_

_Does that matter?_

The boy shrugs, supposes that tonight is just one of _those_ nights. He grabs Jack by the arms and reminds him that _you're welcome to stay anytime._

**xii.**

Jack is staring at him too long and tries, desperately _(is it for your sake, or his?),_ to tell him _we're not lovers._

The boy's smile is rueful, but fond.

_I know._

**xiii.**

He leaves silently, slips through the night and flies swiftly away because the boy is not his Wendy, and he's no Peter Pan.

(He tells himself that _this will be the last_, but he comes back time and again because, _I can't help myself._)

**xiv.**

The window is ajar.

When the boy wakes up, he is not surprised to find himself alone.

**xv.**

(He – the boy – waits for him, sometimes.

He never knows when he'll return; _if_ he returns.

But he leaves his window unlocked, just in case.)

**xvi.**

_It was a chance encounter_, he reasons. A coincidence, perhaps even an irrevocable contingency. He bristles, because it's not like he went out _looking_ for him. (Because how can you reach out to someone who's already _dead?_)

Bunnymund stares down at him, hard, his eyes flickering between hesitance exasperation (_not this again_), and reproach (_stop being an idiot, Frostbite_). Jack stares back, defiant, indignant, because he's not afraid.

But then he sees pity, and that's something Jack isn't willing to take from the Pooka.

**xvii.**

He passes by his grave sometimes. He wants to ask for a lot of things: forgiveness, peace, love, and _how is it up there in heaven?_

But instead he asks, _if you can hear me…_

(No, of course he can't hear you; he's _dead._)

_(… You're dead too.)_

He doesn't finish his question.

**xviii**.

He drifts from city to city, but he always ends up in Burgess in the end.

Jamie calls him (_used to call him_, he reminds himself) a traveler, a free spirit. Obligated to no one, and tied down to nothing.

It's probably the truest lie Jack has ever heard.


End file.
